


promises to keep

by ahtohallan_calling



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, F/M, Romance, scottish au, that's right ladies and gents and everyone in between we're going to culloden, vaguely outlanderish if you're into that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22786948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahtohallan_calling/pseuds/ahtohallan_calling
Summary: As children in the Scottish Highlands, Kristoff and Anna promised to marry each other when they grew up. It's a promise they intend to keep, but the rest of the world seems to have other plans.
Relationships: Anna/Kristoff (Disney)
Comments: 106
Kudos: 98





	1. a promise made

**Author's Note:**

> I heard your cries of "okay, Scottish AU is cool Liv, but we kinda wanted Kristoff to have an accent too and also wear way more kilts."
> 
> Y'all's wish is my command ;)

"What have we here, then?"

Anna thought the answer to that was pretty obvious. It was a little boy with hair the color of new hay and a face spattered with grime. He made no sound, didn't even look up at her father's question.

"What's your name, laddie?" Da asked patiently, but still no reply came.

The woman standing behind him cleared her throat. "We don't know if it's his hearin' or--"

A burly man nearby clapped hard, and the little boy jumped. Anna did, too, but hopefully nobody noticed.

"Thank you, Thomas," her father said drily. "Not that, then. Is it his tongue?"

"We heard him mutterin' in his sleep when we found him by the shore. Not any language I've ever heard."

"No one else with him?"

"Not a soul. Just...wreckage."

Da nodded. "I'll not leave a child to suffer in my lands long as there's life and breath in me. Can you care for him if I were to send you gold enough for his keeping?" 

"Aye, my lord, gladly."

"He's yours, then," he proclaimed. "Give him a good supper and a wash and bring him back to see if he'll get on with the other children."

Anna desperately wanted to follow along with the boy and the woman, wanted to know more about this accidental changeling, but there were more men and women waiting yet for an audience with her father, and he'd asked her and her sister both to stand and watch how the business of clan governance was handled. It was horrendously boring, but her sister and mother both had been acting like perfect ladies all the while, and she was doing her utmost to match them. It wasn’t easy, though, not when her stockings itched worse than grass did when she snuck out and rolled in it instead of going to lessons.

Two dreadful hours later she was free and burst out of the great hall and into the yard, nearly bowling over the little boy from that morning. "What are you doing just standing in the middle of the way like that?" she demanded hotly, but he gave no response, not even a shake of the head, and she paused and looked him over, taking the measure of him. "Can you really not talk, then?"

He only looked at her with those sad, dark eyes. She frowned. "Well? Do you understand me, boy?"

If it were her alone in a new place with no mam, she realized suddenly, she'd not want to talk much either. And if it were very new--

"I'm sorry," she said, "shouldn't have talked so hard to you. I suppose you'd understand I was being cross with you even if you don't know the words."

His brow furrowed, as if he really were trying to understand, and an idea came to her. "Wait," she instructed, leaping to her feet and holding a hand towards him, palm up.

He nodded; that at least was universal. She ran off, and a few moments later she was back, clutching a bit of charcoal and a scrap of parchment. The boy watched, head tilted in curiosity, as she scratched out the four letters of her name.

She looked up, ready to explain, but before she even opened her mouth he smiled and pointed at her. "Anna," he said, rounding the first A in a way she'd never heard before.

"Aye, that's me. Anna."

The boy smiled and laid a hand over his heart. "Kristoff."

* * *

The sun was warm on her cheeks as she flopped ungracefully onto her back in the middle of a patch of heather. It was the first true day of spring, and the mists had at last retreated back up the sweeping slopes of the hills to reveal the new life that had been waiting to emerge from beneath the crusts of snows the whole winter long. The air itself was still crisp and cool, but neither of them cared, not when there were blankets to wrap over their shoulders and good company to be had.

“Sorry I’m late meeting you out here,” Anna said, not bothering to look at him.

“It’s alright. I don’t mind,” Kristoff replied, settling his arms behind his head as he laid back to gaze up at the trails the clouds were stretching across the watery blue sky.

He’d improved in great leaps and bounds over the last year and a half, and she tried not to pride herself too much on that fact or else it’d be a sin and the elders would have her head, which was even scarier than the wrath of God himself. But it was hard not to, not when he could read and write now nearly as well as she could, though he still rarely spoke aloud to anyone except for her. She tried not to feel too proud of that, either.

“It’s just there was a whole ceremony for my sister and some boy from France so they could get betrothed. He’s already going on seventeen, can you believe it? Don’t know why he’d come all this way for my sister. She doesn’t even _smile_ half the time, not even at me.”

“Betrothed?” Kristoff asked, his brows pinching together. “I don’t know that word.”

How strange it was she had forgotten to teach it to him when it was the most important word in her world these days. “I wish I didn’t,” she muttered, rolling onto her stomach so she could look at him. “It means you’ll marry them. Like you’re promised to them.”

“Oh. I understand promises.”

That he did; she’d made him swear about a million of them already, promises to meet her somewhere or not share her secrets or do a favor for her. And he kept every last one of them. “Yeah. So you promise when you’re grown up that you’ll get married.”

“How can you promise to love someone if you don’t know them?”

She sighed. “It’s not like that. Love doesn’t matter when it’s for the good of the clan.”

“Are you betrothed to someone?”

Anna laughed. “Me? No, no one’s interested in scrawny little girls with too many freckles. I can’t even curtsy right.”

“I’ll be betrothed to you, then.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

“Well, when we’re grown up, if we’re still friends, I promise to marry you.”

He said it so sincerely, his eyes so big and solemn she couldn’t help but smile. “Alright, then. I promise, too.”

* * *

"Why, you've gone and grown half a mile and left me behind!" she cried, settling her hands on her hips.

He laughed, and that was different, too, no longer the giggle of a boy but the deep, rumbling chuckle of a man. “You’ve changed, too. Even more freckles.”

His face reddened when his voice cracked on the last word, but she only grinned; there he was, then, still the boy she’d always known, even if now she had to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes. “I go away for a whole year and come back to mockery?”

“Feistypants.”

“Brute.”

“Wee little thing.”

“Wild _big_ thing!”

They were both nearly doubled over with laughter. “I missed you, though,” Anna managed to gasp out. “The letters weren’t the same.”

He grew quieter then. “I missed you, too.”

“I won’t have to go away again, though, now that they’ve finished me into a proper lady. Until I’m married, at least.”

His eyes met hers, dark and searching, and she felt a sudden thrumming in her heart, like the wings of a hummingbird barely beginning to take flight. “Are you betrothed to someone else now, then?”

She shook her head, unable to do anything more when he was looking at her like that. _Someone else._ She had expected him to forget almost immediately; she should have known better. Kristoff didn’t forget things he said in sincerity, which in his case was everything. 

He nodded, looking almost relieved. “Good. We’re almost grown up now, aren’t we? I’m sixteen next month.”

“Aye, and I turned thirteen the last one.”

“And we’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Well, I’d certainly hope so.”

“Then it’s still settled. Between us, I mean.”

Anna smiled and set a hand on his arm, and he blushed again. So did she; that had changed, too. She squeezed and felt him flex beneath her touch, all newly-won hard muscle thanks to the apprenticeship he’d taken with the blacksmith in her absence. “I suppose it is.”

* * *

“I suppose we’re both orphans now,” she said softly, and he reached over to set his hand atop hers where it rested on the hard oak of the pew. “How have you managed it all this time, all this—this feeling so alone?”

“You’re not alone, Anna,” he whispered back as the minister made his way to the front. “You’ve got your uncle still, and your sister, and—and you’ve got me.”

Her eyes were damp when she met his gaze, but there was still a spark in their blue depths, the one that always seemed to ignite something in him, too. “Is that one of your promises again?”

“Aye, it is. You’ll always have me.”

She looked like she wanted to say more, but then the minister cleared his throat and the service began. Instead she flipped her hand beneath his, slipping her little white fingers between his rough, work-hardened ones, and held on tight.

* * *

“Feels like you haven’t asked me to meet you out here for half an age,” Kristoff said, already sprawling out with ease, all long, solid limbs and teasing brown eyes. “Thought maybe you were starting to forget me.”

Anna didn’t laugh. Instead she sat down and tucked her knees up to her chest, her long skirts coming up just enough to reveal a slice of skin above her boots. _How does she have freckles even there_? he found himself wondering, unable to tear his gaze away though the tips of his ears were burning.

“I’m eighteen next week,” she said with a frown. “And my uncle’s got it in his head that I’m halfway to being an old maid already.”

“What does that make me, then? A walking corpse?” he asked, trying to tease, but she didn’t rise to the bait.

“He says with my sister being a widow and shutting herself in these past years, and him only having sons, I’m the last hope if we’re to survive what’s coming next. Said we needed allies, and I said ‘what for’, and all he did was shake his head and try to be mysterious. It’s positively ridiculous, such a self-important man getting to lead us all just because he’s got a cock swinging beneath his skirts and I’ve only got—”

“ _Anna!_ ” he cried, horrified. “Where’d you learn such language?”

Secretly, though, he was amused, and she knew it, too, finally giving him that familiar sunny smile.

“Never you mind about that. The point is he’s going on about me getting married off to some son of a MacDonald or a Campbell if they’ll have me, and I told him—I told him…”

She trailed off, looking away from him again. His heart started to pound, like it had when he had stood with her at the edge of the cliffs that overlooked the seas and she’d whispered, “Doesn’t it make you want to jump? Just to see how it feels?”

“I’m not as good as you,” she said softly, “at keeping promises. But I do try, Kristoff, I do. And I’d like to keep this one if you’ll have me.”

“Which one?” he asked, his voice ragged as he leaned towards her. They hadn’t spoken of it in years, but he’d always wondered, always hoped—

“Well, what I just said,” she said, looking up at him again with a touch of impatience. “That we’re grown now, so you’ll have me, and I’ll have you, and—”

He’d been waiting long enough. He leaned forward then and kissed her, gently at first and then harder when she kissed him back, tangling her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck. It felt like a promise all over again, the way her lips pressed against his, like a seal that would keep them bound together for the rest of their days.

When at last they pulled away, her cheeks were rosy, and she was breathing hard, and both of them were grinning like the reckless fools they were. “Aye, Anna,” he said, and her smile grew improbably wider. “I’ll have you.”


	2. one you can't keep

“But I told him I’d have him, and lying’s a  _ sin _ , Uncle,” Anna pleaded.

“Never known you to be the pious type,” her uncle said drily. “Don’t think screeching  ‘sweet Jesus’ after tripping over your own skirts counts as praying.” 

She was at least lady enough to flush at the accusation, though when her cousin Callum snickered in the corner she stuck out her tongue at him, canceling out any seeming demureness her rosy cheeks might have granted. 

“And anyway,” Uncle went on, more solemn this time, “I don’t intend to let you marry the blacksmith’s apprentice when I’ve got a MacKenzie and a Campbell both eager to have your hand.”

“But I don’t even _know_ them.’  
“And that’s why they’re still interested in you and not running for the hills, Annie dearest,” Callum teased, and this time the gesture she showed him from a hand held just out of her uncle’s line of sight was rude enough he burst out into laughter.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” sniffed Aunt Nellie, as dour as ever. “He’s not even one of us.”

“He’s lived with us since he was a wee little thing, or is your memory starting to fail?” Anna asked waspishly

“He’s just some Viking barbarian-- if he’s even telling us the truth about where he was born.”

“Vikings aren’t even  _ around _ anymore, Auntie, I’ll have you--”

Suddenly her sister’s hand was tight around her wrist, eyes flashing with warning, but Anna went on anyway. “And anyway you sound like the bloody English now, calling people  _ barbarians _ \--”

A heavy fist slammed down suddenly onto the rickety wooden table, and they all jumped where they stood, even Callum looking suddenly grim.

“Watch your tongue, lass,” her uncle growled in warning. “You speak too lightly of matters beyond your ken.”

Anna opened her mouth, but Elsa’s fingers only clenched tighter, hard enough that she had to hold back a yelp of pain. She turned, eyes narrowed, but her sister only shook her head, a beseeching look in her eyes.  _ Later _ , she mouthed.

“But Uncle…” Anna said, still determined to plead her case.

“ _ Enough _ ,” he snapped. “I swore to your father I’d see you and your sister both taken care of, and I’ve done all I can, have I not? I’ve kept you fed and clothed these last three years, and I’ve let your sister keep to her mourning clothes and let you run wild as you like, but the times for such things are past. It's time you started thinking of the good of the rest of the clan and not your own little whims."

"It's not a whim," Anna contested hotly, tears springing to her eyes, "and how would sending me off with some  _ stranger _ do anyone any good? I know our lands and our people better than anyone, Uncle, and I'd do anything for--"

"Well," he interrupted, looking suddenly exhausted. "Well, lass, this is the best way you can help right now, I'm afraid. The world is changing around us, and we've got to change with it."

Before she could come up with another retort, a knock came at the half-open door, and she looked to see a man wearing a half-familiar tartan. “Lachlan MacLeod, I presume?” he asked, and her uncle nodded.

“Aye.”

Uncle gave Anna one last lingering glance. “Do yourself a favor and stop seeing that lad, Anna. It’ll only make it harder when the time comes for goodbye.”

* * *

“Kristoff? Are you here? I need to--”

She had seen him working at the forge before, but it was different this time, knowing now that not only could she look, but that soon enough-- if her uncle could be convinced-- she’d be allowed to touch all she liked, and the mere thought of running her hands over the broad muscles in his back she could see straining beneath his sweat-soaked shirt was enough to make her next words die in her throat.

He turned to look at her then, setting his hammer down and swiping his forearm across his face. Rather than mopping up the sweat that beaded there, though, he only succeeded in smudging ash across his forehead. “Here, let me--” Anna said before she could stop herself, tugging out her handkerchief and darting over to him.

For a moment he froze as she crossed over to him, rising up on her toes, but when he realized she still couldn’t reach him he leaned down. It was the work of only a moment to wipe away the black smear that crossed his brow, but her eyes met his as she did so, and suddenly it was difficult to do anything but breathe as he looked at her with such longing in his eyes, burning brighter than even the forge.

“There, now,” she managed to whisper, “much better.”

She wanted him to kiss her again, but he didn’t; he just looked at her with those dark eyes, not as sad as they were the day she had met him, but still a mystery to her. She wanted to know what laid in the depths of him, what thoughts and feelings made up the riverbed of his heart, turn over each little pebble of him until she’d memorized him inside and out. 

She realized suddenly that without quite meaning to she had lowered her hand to his chest, to just above the leather laces that had come loose over his heart. Her fingers trembled as she set them against the hard muscle there, but she flattened her palm all the same and was rewarded with the realization that his heart was thundering just as hard as her own.

“What did you come here to tell me?” he asked her, his voice low. 

“I’m afraid I’ve entirely forgotten,” she whispered, and he did kiss her then, his hands settling on her waist and tugging her flush against him, so close she could feel him gasp against her when she let her tongue flick over his lower lip. He smelled of ash and sweat and highland air, and she felt half-drunk on him as her hands roamed the broad expanse of his chest and the sturdy slope of his shoulders and up into the surprising softness of his golden hair.

“My God,” he groaned against her mouth, “how long ‘til I can take you to wife and spend every hour of the night with you like this?”

Her heart plummeted, and though she pulled back to look at him she didn’t let go. “I’m afraid I remember now why I had to come and speak with you.”

* * *

Night had fallen an hour ago, draping the hills in a velvet darkness embroidered by ten thousand shining stars, and the air was fresh and clear as the breeze floated past him, lifting the ends of his hair where it fell onto his collar. He leaned his head back as far as it would go, drinking in the majesty of it all, wondering how the greatest beauties the natural world had to offer him could be so vast and wonderful and still pale in comparison to her.

She would tease him for it, he knew, could hear her voice in the back of his mind telling him  _ you’re turning into a poet, aren’t you, you great silly romantic brute of a man _ , but she would smile all the same and kiss his cheek and he’d know that secretly she liked to hear such things. He’d hardly seen her for the last two weeks, only passing glances and notes exchanged here and there as they dodged her uncle’s wrath, but at last she’d managed to grab hold of his hand long enough to whisper “tonight, at our place on the moor”, and the moment darkness had started to fall he’d climbed the hill where they had whiled away so many happy hours.

He heard a little whistle and turned to see her coming up the rise as fast as she could, skirts hiked up around her knees, and felt a grin spread across his face so broad he knew she wouldn’t miss it even in the darkness. “Your uncle’ll have my head if he finds out I’ve met you out here,” he called, just loud enough to reach her ears as he strode over to her as fast as he could without breaking into a run.

“Well, if he wants to get his hands on you he’ll have to wait his turn,” Anna laughed as she flung herself into his waiting arms. 

Kristoff folded himself around her, resting his cheek against the top of her head as his arms pressed her close to his chest, as if somehow he could shelter her from the rising storm with his own flesh and blood. She sighed contentedly, nestling her face against his shoulder, and something in his chest warmed.

“I’ve brought you a whole world of trouble by claiming you, my Anna,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry for it.”

“No use in worrying over it now. I’ll not have another, whether my uncle wills it or no,” she said, fierce as any warrior, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“Aye, and I’ve a feeling he knows it, too. But I hope you know I’m not wanting to marry you just to spite him or for an old promise’s sake.”

“Oh? What would you do it for, then?” she asked, a teasing lilt in her voice. “A hot supper and a warm bed? Something to occupy you on a rainy day?”

“For the love of you, you wretched little minx,” he laughed, tugging gently at a lock of her hair that had come loose, and she let out a surprised little gasp. 

“Oh-- do you mean it?”

“Of course I do,” he replied, feeling surprised himself now. “Why else would I meet you out here, now and as I’ve done ten thousand times before?”

“I….I suppose when you want something dear enough, it can be hard to believe it’s real even when it’s finally yours.”

The warmth in his chest was growing into a full-bodied flame. “That’s how I feel now.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered. “Like nothing else in the world, and I always have, and I expect I always will.”

He leaned back so he could meet her gaze, gently brushing the hair back from her temples where the night breeze had blown it loose from its braid. Her eyes were bluer than any sky or sea he’d ever set eyes upon, and so full of love his knees felt weak beneath him. But he held steady for her, setting one hand carefully under her chin.

“I think I know a way, my love,” he said quietly. “To win your uncle’s approval.”

She reached up and curled her fingers around his wrist, a hopeful smile dawning over that face he’d dreamed of every night since she’d asked him if he still intended to keep his promise. “Then do it. Whatever it is, so long as it keeps us together.”

* * *

“Anna, come  _ on _ ,” her sister said, worry creeping into her voice. “They’ll be looking for us 

before long.”

“They won’t notice if we’re only a few minutes late,” Anna countered, peering through the blacksmith’s window for the second time.

“We were a few minutes late ten minutes ago. I thought you were tired of being left out of things.”

“I  _ am _ , it’s just-- I don’t know, Elsa, I’ve not seen him hardly at  _ all _ today, and I can’t help but worry.”

Her sister huffed out a sigh. “He’s probably been there for an hour already thinking you’d be early, and now  _ he’s _ worried about  _ you _ .”

“Oh, sweet  _ Jesus _ , do you think he really-- why’d you let me go on looking for so long?” she demanded, already grabbing her sister’s hand and tugging her along in her wake.

“I  _ tried _ to tell you,” Elsa said, sounding more amused than irritated, “but you were too busy rambling about his  _ hands _ \--”

She wanted to keep teasing back and forth like this; Elsa was so rarely in the mood to talk at all, but the worry was only mounting in her, tightening in her chest until it ached. As they crept down the stone hallway of the castle, even before they slipped through the half-cracked heavy oaken doors to stand at the back of the hall she could hear her uncle’s voice booming over the gathered crowd.

“...and I know I’m not a great man like my brother were, God rest his soul, but I’ve led you well as I could, and I’ll lead you now myself to put those bastards back in their place, and when I lead you home it’ll be to a new Scotland, led by her rightful king once more!”

So it would be war then, after all, like they’d been talking about for years. She had dismissed the thought, had thought her uncle had as well, but now--

A clamor of joy and bloodthirst and pride echoed through the hall then, loud enough she felt it rattling in her bones. She rose up on her toes as she searched frantically for a familiar golden head.  _ He’s too tall for his own good _ , she thought desperately,  _ why can I not  _ find _ him-- _

And then she saw him in the last place she had been looking, never dreaming he’d be there, but by then it was too late to stop him; he was knelt before her uncle, his head bowed as he said his vow, and though she knew the sound of his voice better than her own all she could hear was a roaring in her ears.

* * *

He had only barely set foot outside of the castle when Anna was there, fury in her eyes and shaking voice as she confronted him.

“How could you  _ do _ such a damned fool thing?”

“‘Whatever it is’,” he reminded her, “that’s what you told me to do, Anna, whatever it is that keeps us together.”

“And getting yourself  _ killed  _ will somehow do that?”

“Do you think me so weak I cannot survive a little skirmish like this?” he demanded.

“I’ve seen you nurse a rabbit caught in a trap back to health with bits of your own supper,” she said, balling her hands into fists. “How are you going to kill a man, Kristoff?”

“If it means getting home to you--”

“And if he beats you to it,” she went on, fisting her hands in the front of his shirt, “and you’ve gone and died and left me alone, then what am I-- what am I supposed to do without--”

A sob escaped her before she could stop it, and then his arms were around her, pulling her close to his chest. “Hush, my love, don’t cry,” he soothed her, running a broad hand up and down her back.

“A fine thing for you to say now,” she said, still as fiery as ever despite the fat tears rolling down her cheeks and plopping onto his shirt, “now that you’ve gone and told me you’re off to die like some grand bloody hero in a stupid  _ war--” _

“I’ll come home to you, I promise,” he said firmly, tightening his embrace. “I’ll always come home to you.”

“You and your  _ promises _ ,” she wept, beating one fist weakly against his chest, but still he didn’t let go. “Now you’ve finally gone and made one you can’t keep.”

“But I  _ can _ . I’ll be back before the first snows, and that’s when I’ll marry you.”

She leaned back to look at him, her cheeks red and blotchy and lashes stuck together with tears. “I wish you'd do it now before you go. There'll be no living for me, not without you, and I want it to be your name carved on my stone.”

He hesitated. “I’ve no money as yet, and I want to do right by you.”

“I don’t care about money. I’d wander the moors for the rest of my days with you and be content.”

“Aye, and I’d be hating myself for it all the while. You deserve a little house, and a fire in your hearth, and a husband you can be proud of, and if I fight well enough for your uncle...maybe he’ll let me have you. And if not, well, then, at least I’ll have earned a bit of coin fighting, and it’ll be enough for us to start somewhere new.”

“But we could just  _ leave _ , Kristoff, if we go far enough they won’t bother looking for you after much longer, and-- and we can--”

She trailed off, clenching her eyes shut and burying her face in his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her temple and let his lips linger there, murmuring as low as he could.

“I’ll come home to you, I swear, with a gold ring so bright you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

“I don’t need a ring. I just need you. We can-- we can run away, Kristoff, just gather what you need and meet me tonight on the moor, and we can  _ leave _ , go all the way to the colonies if we have to--”

Regret swept over him then in a sudden tide, and for a moment he could see it, the future he might have with her in a faraway place with no long-lost princes or vows of loyalty or cries for war, only her and a little house and the peace that hard work and a happy home would bring him. But it was too late; he’d made his vow, and he’d keep it, whether it brought him good or ill.

“Please, please just meet me tonight,” she whispered, her tears finally slowing as she clung to him. “And then we can  _ go _ .”

He sighed. “Anna…”

“Think about it, at least. For me.”

“For you,” he agreed, pressing one more kiss to her forehead before he let her go.

  
  



	3. a plea for forgiveness

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep out here.

Well, really, she hadn’t meant to be out here long enough to. In her mind, by now they would be halfway to Glenfinnan, maybe further if he’d managed to get hold of a horse, and then they’d keep going until they were out of Scotland entirely, and then maybe they could built a little cottage or find a port city and cross to Ireland or further even to the colonies, and there’d be no war nor uncle nor anything else to keep them apart.

But he hadn’t come, and now the sun had already risen, and fear swallowed the anger in her heart when she looked down from the top of the hill into the village and saw the crowd that had already gathered in the square.

Anna ran as fast as she could, the breath tearing from her lungs as she raced over the moor. The toe of her boot caught on her skirt, and she fell with a cry, skidding halfway down the hill and making a bloody, dirty mess of her shins. The second she came to a halt she was on her feet again, panting for air and praying  _ let me make it, Jesus and Mary and God and anyone else who’s listening, let me get there in time _ .

She skidded to a halt next to the tailor’s shop, scanning wildly for him.It seemed the whole village was there crowding the streets, mothers straightening their son’s collars for the last time and wives clinging to their husband’s necks and little siblings enviously eyeing their brothers’ gleaming weapons. At last she laid eyes upon him where he hung back from the rest of them, his eyes cast downward as he fiddled with something in his hand, as if he wasn’t expecting a single soul to come and bid him farewell.

“Kristoff!” she gasped, already reaching for him as she started to run once more, and immediately he looked up, eyes filling with hope as he closed the gap between them.

He caught her around the waist, lifting her slightly off her feet as she flung her arms around him. “I didn’t think you were going to come,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

“Of course I came. I love you,” she choked out, her fingers knotting in the back of his shirt.

“It’s alright, my Anna,” he said softly, cradling the back of her head as she wept against his shoulder. “Don’t cry.”

“I thought-- I thought you would come last night. I waited for you.”

He pressed a kiss into her tangled hair. “I knew you would. And I knew that if I came that I’d go with you and spend the rest of my life feeling guilty for it.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and closed her eyes, memorizing the warmth of his skin and the feel of his arms around her. “I know. But I...I was still hopeful, anyway.”

“Are you still angry with me?”

“Terribly.”

“What’ll I have to do to earn my place in your good graces again?”

She leaned back and raised her hands to cup his jaw, running her thumbs gently over the stubble there. “Come home to me safe and whole, and then swear to never leave my side again.”

“I will, I promise,” he said, and let go of her for a moment to fumble in his pocket. “And I-- here, I wanted you to have this, so you can look at it, and...well.” His cheeks reddened. “I’m not good with words, but I guess you know why I want you to have it.”

He opened his palm to show her an iron ring. “Not gold yet, like I promised,” he said sheepishly, “but I made it myself, if that makes up for it.”

Anna set her fingers lightly on his palm. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered, and he smiled and slid it carefully onto the ring finger of her left hand. “How did you get it just the right size?”

“I learned how your hand fit against mine long ago, and so I…well. Wasn’t hard, really,” he said, sounding almost shy, and she couldn’t help but kiss him then, twining her arms around his neck as she rose up onto the tips of her toes.

From somewhere at the other end of the square, the pipes started playing, a marching song, and panic began to rise in her chest. She pulled back to meet his eyes and found them sadder than she had seen them since the first day they had met, when he had been a lost little boy and she was his only anchor, and she realized that somewhere along the way they had changed places.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, feeling like a child. “Please, don’t leave me.”

“I have to, my love,” he said, leaning down to press his forehead against hers. “But I’ll come home to you, I swear it. You won’t even have time to miss me.”

“I already do,” she whispered, and he kissed her one last time and pulled regretfully away, catching her hand and giving it a squeeze before letting go.

She fell back into the crowd, tears streaming down her face, as he joined the rest of the men. They were a ragged bunch, farmers and bakers and smiths, not a soldier among them, but she knew they’d be meeting up with the rest of the MacLeod clansmen as soon as they got to Lochailort, and somehow from there they’d find the rest of the army and march south to face the English head-on. 

_ How many are there like me _ , she wondered,  _ watching them go and wondering which of them will come home again? _

Her uncle glanced back then, his eyes meeting hers. She lifted her chin defiantly, expecting a scowl, but instead, he bowed his head, sorrow flooding his face, and it occurred to her for the first time that perhaps he, too, had never wanted it to come to this. Beside him, Callum looked just as grim, though he had eyes only for his wife, cradling his son.  _ I’ll look after them for you,  _ Anna thought, wishing she’d thought to tell him as much aloud.  _ You take care of what’s mine, and I’ll take care of yours _ .

He glanced at her then, and she gave him a firm nod. A grin broke across his face, and he saluted her before turning away again to face the road that led them all away from her.

* * *

Every day there was a new kind of ache in him. He was used to hard work, to be sure, perhaps more used to it than many of the other men he marched with. But the endless miles of walking, the hours of drilling, the way he caught himself tensing his jaw near-constantly, all of it meant that at night he laid awake aching for hours on his bedroll, trying not to think of how he could have been home in a bed with a wife next to him if only he’d given less of a damn about honor.

He wasn’t the only one. Many of the men had joined the army for glory and pride and love of country, while others-- the ones who seemed never to stop smiling-- joined for the satisfaction of sinking a blade into its target and the pleasure of warm blood running through their fingers.

But the rest of them-- most of them, actually, he was coming to realize-- had come because their lairds demanded it of them, or because they had mouths to feed back home, or some combination of the two, all of them burdened a sense of duty that outweighed anything else, no matter how dear it was to their hearts. At night they would sit somehow alone and together all at once, and he would see Callum running his fingers over a little portrait of his wife, and there would be Thomas who’d come all the way from Peterhead reading a faded letter for the thousandth time, and gray-haired Duncan who never stopped fiddling with his wedding band, and Kristoff would wish desperately that he’d thought to take something,  _ anything _ , that he could hold onto and think of Anna, some little piece of her that reminded him why he was sitting here in the drizzling rain with a rifle beside him that still felt strange in his hands.

They had, by sheer geographic coincidence, joined up straightaway with the Bonnie Prince himself and his army. Sometimes he caught sight of him talking with the officers or joking around with his private guard or making the rounds to meet the men who were ready to die to give him back a crown. Kristoff always avoided him when he came his way; all he could think when he saw the man’s bright smile was  _ what is it, then, that  _ you’ve _ had to leave behind? _

* * *

The forge was empty now; smith and apprentice alike had marched off together. And the miller’s wife did the best she could to keep them all fed, and the carpenter’s boy used all of his fourteen year old fury at being left behind to give him stamina though he lacked much skill, and there was no one to replace the butcher so they made do with what was left in the larder and what they could manage to pull from the river.

Aunt Nellie shut herself up the same day the men left, and Elsa was better suited to helping keep books and sorting out the mind-numbing tasks of governance, and so it fell upon Anna to go from house to house each day, doing whatever little she could to raise their occupants’ spirits.

News came so rarely that most days they just rehashed the same conversations over and over,  _ I remember when he was knee high to a lamb _ and  _ I hope his blanket’s holding up _ and  _ have I ever told you how we met? _ And she would say  _ yes, and now he’s the size of a bear!  _ and  _ I’m sure it is, yours are always of the strongest weave _ and  _ no, but I’d love to hear _ , and it was enough, at least, to fill the silence. She felt sometimes like a rag shoved into the cracks around a door, doing whatever she could to fill the gap and stop the cold from getting too far in.

And the softer hearts among them would ask after Kristoff, too; they had all seen her say goodbye to him, and before that had seen the years they spent side by side, and she would show them the ring he’d made and tell how he’d known just how to make it without even taking the measure of her hand, and they would smile and sigh and say  _ you hold on to that one when he comes home. _

_ I will,  _ she would promise, and then before long she would have to take her leave and go out somewhere that none of them could see her and catch her breath before she went on to the next house and did it all again.

And then one day real news did come, that they’d taken Edinburgh and a town next to it, and she practically ran from door to door bringing word of it. “Maybe they really will be home by Christmas,” she said breathlessly to Callum’s wife, and then suddenly they were both laughing and weeping and holding on tightly to one another for dear life.

* * *

It had been six hours, and his hands were still shaking.

“You’re alright, lad,” Anna’s uncle was saying, grasping his shoulder to try and ground him, but it wasn’t enough; all he could hear was the man’s gasp when the musket ball had hit him and the solid  _ thwack _ of the body hitting the earth and the cry that had escaped his own lips when he’d realized what he had done.

“You saved my son’s life,” the older man said then, his voice becoming strained, “and I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“He was someone’s son, too,” Kristoff said, feeling faraway from it all somehow, like he was still on the battlefield, watching as tiny drifting snowflakes fell and melted when they landed on a slack face that was still warm.

“Aye, he was,” Lachlan said softly, “and that’s why we’ve got to keep fighting as best we can, so this madness can end before there’s none of us left to go home.”

Kristoff closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I told Anna I’d be home before the first snow fell.”

“It can’t be helped now, lad. But I’ll do all that’s in my power to get you back to her as soon as I can.”

He nodded, grateful, knowing it was as close to a blessing as he was likely to get. He half expected the other man to get up and leave, go back to his officer’s tent, but instead he stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands, staring up in silence at the vast expanse of sky, and still he was there when at last the trembling stopped and, overcome with exhaustion, Kristoff fell into an uneasy sleep and dreams of Anna clinging to him with tears streaming down her cheeks and whispering  _ it’s alright, all of it, so long as you come home _ .

* * *

The winter was long and dark, devoid of any news except word that a battle had been half-won in January, that a siege had been attempted but both sides had instead retreated partway through. “Why?” Anna asked the man who brought the message, but the only answer was a shrug as the man mounted his horse and turned towards the next village.

There was no news of who yet lived or died, and with the animals kept indoors and no crops to harvest and the moors too frigid to wander, there was little to do but sit at home and wait.

The days were bad enough, sitting by firesides and rehashing the same memories and thoughts and questions over and over for the thousandth time, but the nights were what hollowed her, left her staring up at the ceiling drowning in a tide of dread. This was supposed to have been a fast war, an easy victory for the mighty highlanders and the rightful king against the bastardly interlopers, harking back to the days of Bannockburn and wicked King Edward and the heroes of the Scotsmen charging into battle just as ferociously as they still did today.

She couldn’t help but wonder now what it had been like for the ones left behind back then, if they, too, had paced from room to room and trembled for fear and joy alike over every scrap of news, if they traded the same stories a thousand times over and told each other “this will be it, they’ll be home before you know it and the English will let us alone at last”.

One evening in February as she made her way home after spending an hour smiling and clapping at Callum’s little boy as he made his first hesitant steps across the floor, she found herself walking by the blacksmith’s shop and peering through the window out of habit, as if by some miracle she might catch a glimpse of Kristoff there, the light of the forge gilding him around the edges as he swung his hammer high, all warmth and strength and life.

She blinked and realized she had somehow drawn close enough to flatten her palm against the window, her nose pressing against the glass as she peered in through the gloom at the dust-ensconced anvil and bare table, and suddenly a wild thing overtook her, a desperate need to see some kind of light in the hearth, and before she knew it she was through the backdoor that had been left mercifully unlocked and kneeling before the fireplace.

It took a few tries, but she had seen Kristoff do it enough times that before long she had a fire going, and she sat back on her heels willing the warmth of it to melt the slick, icy dread in her heart that was turning her blood to sludge in her veins.

Anna closed her eyes as tight as she could, twisting the ring around her finger out of habit as she remembered the way his arms had circled around her, the way he’d pressed his lips to her cheek and promised such pretty things to her, the way the sunlight had glinted on his hair as he disappeared from view. If that was the last she saw of him, if that had been goodbye-- 

She screwed up her face, willing herself not to cry, but the tears came anyway, burning as they rolled down her cold cheeks. She had told him she was angry with him, that she wouldn’t forgive him until he came home, but her fury had faded away the second she had lost sight of him, and now she was the one who wanted to beg for mercy, to tell him over and over again how sorry she was for spending the night on the moor waiting for him to betray himself when she could have spent hours in his arms, holding him and telling him how she loved him until the dawn.

_ If you come home to me _ , she thought then, as if it were a prayer,  _ I’ll spend the rest of my life doing just that to make it up to you. _

* * *

It wasn’t supposed to be happening like this. There were thousands of them, highlanders and lowlanders alike, drilled in rushing forward with a battle cry and startling the enemy into a retreat, the same way they had that had carried them through the fall, but somehow this time it had failed, and now half the army was back at Inverness, and the rest of them were here fighting as best they could through the mud and melting snow as the struggle quickly turned into a slaughter.

He was half out of bullets already, trying not to choke on smoke as he charged towards where Callum was trapped beneath a fallen horse, ignoring the pitched battle all around him as he sprinted forward, thinking only of the woman with curly hair and the blue-eyed babe in her arms standing straight-backed beside Anna and refusing to give in to tears, and then there was a scream and a sword and a burst of red and he was too late.

He stumbled back in horror, a cry bubbling out of his throat as he raised his gun to his shoulder, taking aim, but suddenly there was a shout behind him. On instinct, he turned, the musket ball firing uselessly into the air, and came face to face with a snarling man on horseback, his sword extended, and then there was a blinding pain tearing from his hip to his knee. 

He blinked, too stunned to cry out, and suddenly he was lying in the mud, his vision already going gray around the edges. He clenched his eyes shut, willing himself to stay conscious, to stand again and keep fighting, to avenge Callum and the rest of his clansmen and fight his way through the entire army if he had to, if that was what it took to keep his promise.

He opened his eyes with a gasp of pain, and somehow there she was leaning over him, as solid and real as the earth beneath his back, grace in her eyes as she smiled at him, the ring on her hand glinting as she reached down to caress his cheek.

“Forgive me,” he said hoarsely, and she opened her mouth to reply, and then he blinked and she was gone, and in her place there was a soldier in a red coat with his rifle raised high, and he swung it down hard as if it were a hammer, and Kristoff saw no more.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you mary/@kristoffbjorg and ronnie/@ronnieiswriting for the idea of how he would know how to make her ring the right size


	4. the call of the sea

“Miss Anna! Someone’s coming!” the carpenter’s son shouted from the branches of the oak tree where he perched every afternoon waiting for his father to come home.

“How many, Ross?” she called back, her heart already pounding, half afraid and half wondrous. It was mid-May, and there’d been no news since the start of April. She and the rest of the townsfolk were all at their wits’ end; only two more months and a bit, and it would be a full year since the men had ridden off to a war that was supposed to have finished before Christmas.

She wiped her hands on her bodice in an attempt to clean them of the dust they had collected as she had worked to repair a crack in the side of the well in the center of town.  _ What would Kristoff think of me now? _ she thought, the corner of her mouth curling up in amusement.  _ All covered in dirt and with mortar spilled on my dress. _

She knew exactly what he’d say: he’d tease her at first, pretend not to recognize her, and then he’d catch her up in his arms and kiss her so soundly the past months would fall away, and once more they would only be Anna and Kristoff, on the hill together worried about nothing but who would lead the next embrace.

The men who rode up to her, Ross still trailing them, were gray-faced and solemn. “Welcome,” Anna said, curtsying deeply as if she were in a silk gown and not dingy muslin that she wore on the days she worked outside like this. “What news have you?”

“We’re looking for Eleanor MacLeod, the wife of your chief.”

She stood as tall as she could. “My aunt went to the Lord’s side three months past.”

The men exchanged an uneasy look. “Are you the chief’s next of kin, then?”

“Aye, suppose I am. What news have you that’s so important it needs this pageantry?” she asked, doing her utmost to keep her tone light.

They dismounted and, to her surprise, bowed their heads. “We were sent by our own chief, John MacLeod of Dundee, to bring you news of our kinsmen.”

“Well, spit it out, then,” Anna said impatiently.

How long the silence lasted, she didn’t know; it could have been a second, a minute, an hour, but later, when she stood alone on the hill after sharing the news with the rest of the villagers. she wished desperately that it had dragged on forever, or that she had never been born to hear, “I’m sorry, miss, but they’re gone.”

* * *

Nearly half the village, gone just like that. A few they had already had news of, the ones who were on the front lines and paved the way for early victories, but the rest had been cut down just south of Culloden. An hour, that’s what the two messengers had told her; that was all it took, and just like that the war was ended, for the soldiers, at least.

It would never be over for her, nor for the rest of the women and fathers and sons who’d been too old or young to go; the rest of their lives would be spent trying to climb back from the abyss of despair they’d been unceremoniously thrown into.

Anna did her best to keep a brave face on. Elsa defaulted to her, and the rest of the townsfolk, even the men who had bounced her on their knees when she’d been a babe, followed suit, and so she was the one who had broken the news to each household, held each widow while she wailed, brought food around from the castle’s larders to anyone who couldn’t bring themselves to move, let alone keep hungry mouths fed.

And she was the one who, tormented by sleepless nights of wondering where Kristoff rested now and whether she might ever be able to grieve him there, brought them together on the first of June, a stone held tightly in each of her hands, and led them to the crest of the hill where she had wasted their last night waiting for a man who hadn’t come to her and now never would again.

She set down the larger of the two first. “For my uncle Lachlan,” she said, proud and fierce as she could manage despite the tears already threatening, “one of the greatest men I ever knew.”

She placed the other next to it. “And for my...for Kristoff,” she said, digging her nails into her palm to keep her voice steady, and though she couldn’t bring herself to say more she knew they all understood.

Bridget and her son were next; she knelt down and laid the stone as carefully as she could while the little boy clung to her collar, wide-eyed. “For our Callum,” she said, her voice barely audible but steady all the same. “The finest husband and father we could have asked for.”

On and on it went, until the cairn rose to her waist and the others had dispersed to her homes and she was left standing alone next to it in darkness. She reached out with a trembling hand to rest her fingertips on top of the final stone, the one a little girl had stood on her tiptoes to place as she whispered, “For my grandpapa.”

“Rest well,” she said, dry-eyed and hollowed as an ancient bone. “And know we’ll not forget you.”

* * *

On the eve of the three hundred and sixty-fifth day without him, she mounted the hill just after twilight and looked down at all the houses and their shuttered windows and let herself be swallowed up by silence.

She sat, pulling her knees to her chest and tucking her chin against them, and closed her eyes, for once not looking for a person who needed comforting or a job that needed doing, and instead allowing it all to wash over her.

It didn't hurt at first, the thought of Callum and her uncle and Kristoff lying in unmarked graves, of the tears in the tapestry of her life that they had left behind. She felt detached from it somehow, like it was a simple fact she had read once in a book,  _ they are dead and gone and your heart is buried with them _ . She wished it did hurt. Then she could cry, could scream, could wail until her voice broke against her grief like a wave slamming to shore-- could do anything besides sit here feeling this unending emptiness.

She hated herself for it, for not being able to mourn them properly, the way they deserved. All she could do was stand back and organize the rest of the ones left behind and help them make sense of it all as best they could, distant and unfeeling as if she had never loved them at all.

_ I did _ , she thought, wishing she could pray it somehow and be assured that they would hear.  _ More than my own life. _

What a cruel twist of fate, then, to be left with the lesser of the two.

* * *

It was her sister at last who pulled her aside.

“Your dress keeps falling off your shoulders.”

“Because it’s worn out and I’ve not had the time to make a new one.”

“Because you’re running yourself ragged,” Elsa said softly, “and not eating enough, and come winter the winds will be strong enough to blow you away.”

Anna averted her eyes. “The people need me. And it’s not much, really, not compared to all the correspondence and-- and money things you do here, and so it’s the least I can--”

“You need to take better care of yourself, Annie,” she said softly, and the nickname sent a jolt through her, reminded her of Callum and how he’d laughed and called her that since they were children, how they’d been Annie and Ellie to him, and they’d tease back and call him Callie and he’d scowl and fling bits of mud at them in revenge and--

“Stay with me,” her sister said again, louder this time, as she pressed cool hands to Anna’s cheeks. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she mumbles.

“You look like you’re about to faint.”

Anna sighed. “I’m  _ fine _ .”

“You need to go and...and do whatever it is you need today. We all know what day it is. We knew the two of you long enough, we knew--”

“ _ Stop _ ,” Anna said, her voice sounding foreign to her own ears. “I don’t want to talk about it. It was just-- just a silly, childish thing, since we didn’t really know his birthday-- it doesn’t  _ matter-- _ ”

“It mattered to you, didn’t it?”

Anna went silent, casting her eyes downward. “I thought it did.”

Elsa sighed and dropped her hands. “Tell me, Anna. Tell me why you won’t even take the time to mourn him.”

“I tried. I-- I just  _ can’t _ , Elsa, I-- and I know it’s wrong and horrid of me, and what you must think of me--”

“What  _ I _ think of you?”

“You-- you still wear your mourning clothes, and it’s been three years now, and here I am unable to even  _ cry _ \--”

“It’s different for everyone,” Elsa said softly, “and-- and I think in this case especially. I didn’t feel about Julien the way you felt--  _ feel _ \-- about Kristoff.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, I-- I know you must have loved him ten times as much--”

“Not...like that.”

A faint blush was coloring her cheeks now, and Anna frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He was a dear friend, to be sure, and I miss him terribly even now, but...it wasn’t like that between us. He had, ah...someone else. Guillaume, to be precise.”

Anna’s eyebrows flew upward. “But you spoke of him so often afterwards, and-- and you still--”

“I was a stranger in a strange land, and he was my only friend for a long time. But now, I confess, I still wear my widow’s garb so I’m not pressed into another marriage. I know I won’t be as lucky a second time.”

Anna mulled over this for a long moment. It was the sort of thing she had suspected more than once, but never dared to question aloud. “But you grieved him. You...you wept over him, still. And I...I cannot even feel anything. I just feel...empty. Numb.”

“For everyone it’s different. Julien’s mother was the same until the day I boarded the ship home, and then it all came over her at once. But you want to mourn, don’t you?”

“Yes. I...it’s what he deserves. What  _ all _ of them do.”

“Then give yourself the time for it. Go to the sea today like you used to. The village can live a day without you.”

And so she did, sitting on the edge of the cliffs that overlooked the water and swinging her legs. She had never dared to do this-- or rather, she had wondered how it would feel and crept ever closer to the edge, but whenever she turned back Kristoff would be pale, never out of arm’s reach, and so she would never go too far before turning to him and suggesting they go down to the shore instead. And the last time they had been here together, she had gone further than ever, overtaken by a sudden wild impulse, and had asked him, “Doesn’t it make you want to jump? Just to see how it feels?”, not looking at him as she peered down.

He had wrapped a thick arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest hard enough that she had opened her mouth to protest before realizing she could feel his heart hammering against her spine. “No,” he had murmured, barely audible over the crash of the surf below, and she had leaned her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes and known then that the love she felt for him that she had put off for years as a childish fancy was in fact the most solid and wonderful and real thing in the world.

People jumped from places like this. It was the sort of thing she thought she ought to consider; that was what you did, didn’t you, when you lost your true love?

She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to turn back and look over her shoulder and see him standing there, white-faced and reaching for her, and to run to him and hold on and promise never to give him such a fright again. She wanted to feel the press of his palm against her back, the rise and fall of his chest and the brush of his breath over her hair, wanted to hear the rumble of his laugh and see the twinkle in his eyes and taste on his lips the sweetness of all his promises and know he meant to keep every one of them.

She lifted her eyes from her lap towards the sea that had brought him to her and wondered what had taken him away; if it had been a musket or a noose or a fever, if he had lingered or been gone in a flash, if he had known that given the chance she would have stayed by his side and held his hand and made sure that the last thing he knew was how greatly he was loved.

And then, at last, she did weep for fear that perhaps he had been entirely alone, that perhaps his last thought hadn’t been that she loved him but that she might not forgive him for not coming home.

“I do,” she choked out, her voice whipped away by the wind, “I do, Kristoff, I do.”

* * *

There had been a time in his life when he had been able to come and go as he pleased, when his work had made him proud, when he had been able to stand without pain and breathe in the fresh highland air and look up to see the stars, a time when he had been content and hopeful and so very naive.

And he had been loved so much it took his breath away, even now when he leaned against the damp corner of a dank cell listening to the rattle of a key as it locked him back in once more after a job sufficiently done. His leg ached and his hands were blistered and he was so tired he didn’t know if he’d wake up in the morning, but he closed his eyes and saw a girl with a smile that shamed the stars and a heart so full of love it had always frightened him, how easily she gave it, for fear that she might run out and not have enough left over for him anymore.

He hoped that wasn’t the case, that she remembered him still, because he had a promise to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you like the ending better this time :) and that the glimpse into elsa's story was satisfactory
> 
> i know this was kind of vague but basically every year on the anniversary of kristoff arriving in the village (after the shipwreck that killed his parents) he and anna would go out to the cliffs/the shore and just kind of reflect on how the way he got there was sad but how grateful they were it had brought them together :')


	5. and another year older

With every strike of the hammer, Kristoff said their names in his mind, over and over.  _ Callum _ who had befriended him,  _ Anna _ who had loved him,  _ Lachlan _ who was the reason he stood now, mostly whole, in the prison’s forge hammering out another set of heavy iron chains, the twin of the set that locked around his ankle and kept him from leaving this room.

He had forged that set himself two weeks ago when the guards had noticed the old one had started rusting. He had seen, too, and allowed himself to pause for only a moment to consider how easy it would be to draw the iron taut and drive the hammer against the weakened links, to make his way down the corridor and find the key to remove the band around his ankle, and then he’d go home to her, running the whole way if he had to, and go away with her like she had wanted, like he should have done in the first place.

And then he had leaned too far on his bad leg to examine it and nearly fallen to his knees; even if he found a suitable walking stick it would be painfully slow-going, and he would be an outlaw, now, one they knew by name, and they would find him and drag him back here and hang him and Anna would be there watching in horror if she was lucky and swinging beside him if she wasn’t.

And so he had turned back to his work and ignored the snorts of laughter when one guard had muttered to another, “They told me the highlanders were stupid, but I didn’t know how bad it was. Poor bastard could have been miles away by now if only he’d bothered to look down.”

He would find a way. He wouldn’t waste the opportunity he had been given. He’d make a name for himself, earn a reputation as one of the “good ones”, whatever that meant; someone, someday, might take pity on him, shorten his sentence in exchange for work done, and then, at last, he’d go home and beg for her forgiveness.

* * *

The weeks leading up to Christmas were harder than the day itself.

Now that the floodgates had been opened, Anna had found herself weeping more days than not throughout the fall, but once the first snows fell and she remembered his old promise, it seemed she could hardly keep her eyes dry long enough to get her daily errands run. Sometimes it came on without warning, without even a thought or sight to trigger it; other days she woke up with her eyelashes already damp and a weight on her chest that made it difficult to drag herself from the bed.

She was determined to make it a festive season for the children’s sake if nothing else, and so she spent the advent season flurrying from house to house helping to hang mistletoe and holly, listening to the children’s little excited chatter and keeping a mental list of which gifts would bring the most delight where. Elsa had long since sold off most of the old furniture in the castle-- which was more of a manor, anyway, really, but even still was too big for only two women-- and, though she had given the majority of it to those who found themselves utterly adrift after the war, she had set aside a small fund precisely for things like this. And so Anna found herself more than once making the trek to Glenfinnan, coming home with sacks full of ribbons and dolls and oranges and trying not to think of how she had once meant to run away here and not look back.

And she wondered, with every visit, every afternoon spent comforting a widow and every supper spent listening to the same stories, if somewhere Kristoff would be proud of her, if he knew she would do the same for his family if there had been anyone left but her to mourn him. 

And that was what she thought about most of all, in the dark depths of night with no sound but the wind whistling through the bare-limbed trees. It had been nearly a year and a half now without him, eighteen months of aching, and she couldn’t stop herself from agonizing over what might have been if he had come home when he’d meant to, if he’d never left at all; even if he had survived the final battle and come home defeated, she would have loved him just the same, would have built a home with him and done all she could to make it a happy one.

On Christmas Eve Elsa excused herself early, leaving Anna to sit alone in a chair before the fire in the parlor. For a long while she simply sat, looking into the depths of the fire and thinking of the flame she had seen burning in the depths of Kristoff’s dark eyes that day she had found him in the blacksmith’s shop and kissed him like she never had any intention of letting go. They would have been married by now, for well over a year if she’d had any say in it. And she would sit beside him, just like this, in front of a fire he had built himself, bellies full with a holiday dinner, and she would say something to amuse him and he would laugh and lean to kiss her cheek, and perhaps it wouldn’t be just the two of them any longer; perhaps she’d be cradling a babe against her breast, one with hair the color of new wheat who looked like his father and laughed like his mother.

Suddenly the ache in her heart was too sharp to bear, and she stood and crossed to the other chair, where Elsa had left a blanket and pillow, and she took them and sat back in her own chair.

If she draped the fabric over her shoulders like so, if she settled the pillow against her chest, if she closed her eyes tight enough and let her mind wander, she could almost imagine how it would feel to have a husband’s arms wrapped tight around her, to have a son slumbering in her embrace, and she knew this was the way to madness, but for one night-- one night, perhaps, it would be alright, just to pretend; it was Christmas, after all, and this little sliver of peace might be the only gift she got.

* * *

_ “Bastard is going to drink himself to death at this rate,” a voice shouts from down the hall. “What good is it keeping a smith on salary if he’s too drunk to lift a hammer? Fucking useless, I tell you…” _

_ The men around him perk up, curious, but Kristoff doesn’t move. He sits, one leg extended and the other pulled up to his chest, with his head bowed low, focusing only on drawing in one breath at a time. _

_ It had gotten better at first, the pain, and then it had gotten so much worse. He can’t stop looking at it, the way the skin puckers red and angry around the wound. He knows well enough what it means and has resigned himself to the outcome. Perhaps it’s what he deserves, a cruel twist of an ending as repayment for his foolishness; surviving what would have been a merciful death only to die here of a soured wound, conscious til the end of how he has failed the one thing-- the one person-- that he did all of this for. _

_ The voice comes closer then as its owner kicks ferociously at the bars. “Don’t suppose any of you lot know anything about smithing, do you?” the guard asks, laughing humorlessly. _

_ “Aye,” comes a familiar voice from the opposite side. “I do. I know my nephew over there’s the finest smith in the highlands.” _

_ A snort of laughter is the initial response. “Should have done a better job, then, maybe then your weapons would have done you some good, eh?” _

_ “His did,” Lachlan says again, determined. “Look at him, the great blond bastard. D’you really think farm work built him that way?” _

_ The guard pauses for a moment, considering. “Can you repair links, boy?” _

_ It takes a moment before Kristoff realizes he’s the one being addressed. “Aye.” _

_ “Alright, then,” the guard says with a heavy sigh, and then the door is being swung open, and he’s being yanked to his feet by the collar with a hiss of pain. “Fucking hell, how’s he going to smith for me on that leg, eh?” _

_ “Guess you’ll have to fix him up,” comes the sardonic response. _

_ “Better be worth my time,” the guard mutters. “Can’t believe I’m hiring my next smith on the advice of a condemned man.” _

_ Kristoff dares a glance over his shoulder as he limps out. Lachlan is grinning ear to ear despite the heavy, scabbed line that runs the length of his face. “I may beat you home, laddie,” he calls, “but we’ll get you there soon enough.” _

* * *

January was cruel enough, but February was worse, offering her snatches of sunlight again that shone on the hardened crust of snow that had lingered for weeks with only new ice falling like needles to make the pathways nearly impassable. There was no work to do, no holiday to prepare for, nothing but the biting cold and too-short days and trips to the cliffs when she’d told Elsa she was visiting Bridget.

That was where she was now, her cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders as she huddled against the wind. She was grateful that it wasn’t a crying day, at least; the tears would have frozen before they fell, sealing her lashes together and blinding her. 

“If you were here,” she said softly, “you’d be angry, wouldn’t you? Tell me I was bound to get frostbite out here and make me wear your cloak, too, til you got me home.”

Anna did close her eyes then, picturing it, how he’d stomp around for a minute pretending to be cross when really she knew he was frightened, and she’d steal over to him and sneak her hands around his waist and hold him and tell him how sorry she was. 

Somehow even her daydreams always circled back to that, to the lead weight of regret that threatened to drag her down into despair. She wasn’t so sure anymore what she believed about heaven and hell and all the rest of it, but it was a comfort, at least, to think that perhaps he was there above her somewhere listening each time she whispered it with no one around to hear but the breeze.

“Anna!” a voice called, and her eyes flew open. What was her sister doing out here? 

She rose in a panicked flurry, turning on her heels and fully expecting to see pity in Elsa’s gaze, but instead she saw pure, heart-stopping fear.

“We need you,” Elsa panted. “There’s-- there’s soldiers, English ones, we don’t know if they’re trying to cause trouble, or--”

Anna didn’t wait to hear another word. This was a remote village, but word had still gotten to them about the new draconian regulations outlawing the use of their own mother tongue, the wearing of tartan and playing of pipes, anything that set them apart from the English; and worse than that the raids of every nook and cranny of the highlands and lowlands as the army sought to eradicate any last whispers of Jacobite rebellion.

Thank whatever god might be in the heavens, then, that her father had sent her off to an aunt in Yorkshire when she’d been a girl to “finish” her; she wasn’t quite sure that he’d gotten the desired result, but she could at least speak English now, though how rusty she might be she didn’t stop to consider as she caught sight of the red-garbed men and slowed her pace to a leisurely stroll.

“Afternoon, gentlemen,” she said with a deep curtsy, the picture of demure ladyhood. “And welcome. Might I inquire what brings you here?”

The shorter one, a man with a curling mustache, growled, “D’you mean to mock us?”

His partner laughed and put a hand in front of his companion’s chest. “Hold, Arthur. The first time we see a glimpse of civilization in this godforsaken country and you think to insult her?”

Anna kept a sweet, simpering smile on her face, though inside she was already boiling with rage. The second man turned back to her, green eyes glittering as he swept into a bow. “My lady,” he said, mockery underscoring his words, “I do hope you don’t mind giving us a tour of this...what would you call this, Arthur? Do you think it qualifies as a village?”

“Stop playing around, Henry,” Arthur grumbled. “It’s cold as a witch’s teat this far north.”

Henry sighed. “He’s no fun, is he? But I suppose it is best for us to get on with it, don’t you think?”

“With what?” Anna asked, hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her voice.

“The Duke of Cumberland has sent us to make sure things are running here as they should be. You understand, of course; it’s a favor, really, to put any traitors out of their misery before they try something idiotic again.”

A crowd had gathered around them now, and Anna heard murmurs of dissent.  _ Please, god, _ she prayed,  _ let them stay quiet. _ “Of course,” she said with a dip of the head. 

Henry gave her a gleaming smile before stepping past her into the nearest home. “Just going to have a look around,” he called as Arthur followed him, gleefully kicking aside chairs and flinging open every door haphazardly.

A cry of indignation rose up behind her, and she spun to see an elderly man pushing his way forward. He opened his mouth to speak, and without thinking she flung a hand over his mouth, silencing him.

“They’re armed, Harris,” she hissed. “And they’ll not hesitate to harm you if they hear you speaking Gàidhlig.”

The man stiffened beneath her hand as he watched his home being ransacked, but after a tense moment he nodded, and she lowered her hand.

She turned back to see Henry smirking, his hands casually resting on his unslung musket. “Problem, my lady?”

“Of course not,” she said sweetly.

They worked so roughly it took barely an hour for them to have torn apart every home in the village, Anna trailing them all the while. Mercifully, the townsfolk had heeded her warnings and found places to hide their heirlooms that the soldiers wouldn’t bother to look.

_ And of course _ , she thought dully,  _ they’ll not be finding any former Jacobites here, will they? _

With a sigh, Henry stepped closer to her. “Shame I won’t have a reason to come back and visit you, my dear...what was your name, then?”

“Anna,” she said, holding his gaze.

A cruel smile unfurled over his face. “You’re far too pretty and well-mannered to live in this shithole. You’re welcome to come back with us if you’d like. I’d take  _ excellent _ care of you.”

Hot tendrils of rage curled around her heart. “I’m a married woman, I’m afraid,” she said, raising her left hand to show him the iron band she still wore.

He tipped back his head and laughed. “Are you? Where is he then?”

When she didn’t reply, his smile broadened. “You’re not married anymore if he’s dead,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “If he died like the rest of them, squealing like a stuck hog. Who knows, maybe I’m the one who did it. I hope I was-- make this whole thing feel very full circle, wouldn’t it?” he asked, lifting one hand to curl around her cheek.

She didn’t dare to move. She’d come across men like this before, men who were itching for a fight; he’d come here hungry for blood and had found none, and so it had fallen onto her to keep any from being spilled today.

“What do you say?” he asked, drawing closer. “I’ve heard how you barbarians scream in battle-- now I’d like to hear how a highland whore screams in my--”

“Annie!” a voice called. “There you are, my love!”

A hand clapped on her shoulder, and she turned, blinking with surprise, to see Ross there, holding Bridget’s son in his arms. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“Well, you’ve found me now, haven’t you?” she asked, the words spilling from her tongue automatically. “What is it, then, dear?”

“‘Fraid this wee one’s gone and soiled himself again,” the boy said, wrinkling his nose exaggeratedly. “And I can’t find any clean cloths.” 

There was no odor, and in fact the toddler looked quite content, but she pulled back all the same, hearing a huff of irritation from Henry. “How big of a fool do you think I am, then?” he snapped. “To think you’re married to this  _ child _ ?”

Ignoring him, she took the baby in her arms. “There, there, my darling,” she crooned, kissing his forehead. “Mummy’s got you now.”

They walked off then, Anna not daring to look back. Thankfully, Ross did for her. “They’re getting on their horses now,” he whispered urgently. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

“We’ve given them no reason to,” she replied, her shoulders sagging with relief. “ _ Jesus _ , Ross, you got there just in time.”

“I was watching all the while,” he said, sounding once more like the boy of barely fifteen he truly was. “And I-- I saw him touch you, and heard what he was saying, and I suddenly thought about my Da and how brave he was, and how he’d want me to be brave, too, and I sort of looked at Bridget and she...she understood.”

“You were very brave,” Anna said fondly. “And your father would be awfully proud.”

The boy flushed under the praise. “Do you really think so?”

“Aye. I know it.”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Others might come, you know. To make sure we’re...adjusting. To how they want us to live. Do you...do you think you might teach me to speak their tongue, too? In case next time you’re not around?”

For a moment she froze, and he frowned, worried. “Did I offend you, Miss Anna? If it’s too much trouble, I--”

“No, no, not at all,” she said quickly, a smile blooming over her face. Here it was, then, at last, the next right thing, a step she could take to helping them all recover and-- as much as it pained her to think of it-- move on. “We’ll start this afternoon.”

* * *

Kristoff knew it was nearing summer again by the stench that wafted through the bars over the window even he wasn’t tall enough to see out of. He had his own cell now, and had had it ever since he’d made a new knife for the warden. The man had watched him closely the whole time, making sure he didn’t try to turn the weapon against any of the guards, and when it had been presented to him, even and perfect and solid as all the yards and yards of iron chains Kristoff had forged over the last few months, he had nodded in satisfaction. “Take him out of that shithole of a cell,” he had instructed, and as Kristoff had left it for the last time he’d heard his fellow former soldiers whisper  _ that’s a lad _ and  _ well done, you _ .

He’d expected them to be angry for him; they knew full well who’d been making the heavy leashes that chafed at their limbs and kept them tied to the cold stone. And some had been resentful, at first, but as the months wore on and they’d seen he wore his own handiwork, they had softened towards him, enough to tell them of their own families and sweethearts back home.

He never told them about Anna, but they knew, all the same, from the look in his eyes, the determination in his shoulders as he limped heavily down the hall every afternoon.

He missed it sometimes, the companionship, though it was an improvement not to piss in the same corner as five other men and share mouldering piles of hay and crusts of black bread and always those blasted fleas. It felt like an unearned grace to sit now in a cell alone, no longer even chained unless he was being brought to the forge-- and to know that tucked behind a loose stone was a tiny pile of coin, given to him by men who had seen the warden’s dagger and wanted favors of their own. It meant he had to work harder than usual on whatever work the guards gave him that day, knowing that if he took any longer than normal it’d be the whip for him and back to the underground cells, but he didn’t mind the exhaustion, not really, not when it made falling into sleep that much easier.

The door to the hall opened, and he rose to his feet, reaching for the cane one guard, inspired to pity over Easter a month before, had brought him. It was too small for him, really, but it was better than leaning on the wall and dragging his ruined leg behind him when it gave out after only a few yards of walking. 

“Here we are, then,” the warden said, unlocking the door and stepping aside.

Kristoff frowned. “I did not think there was more to be done,” he said, grateful that years ago Anna had taught him the foundations of this unfamiliar tongue.

“There always is, isn’t there?” the man said gruffly. “But now they’ve gone and decided I can’t make use of you any more. Damn shame, I’ll tell you that. What you did for free was twice as good as what that old bastard Whitby used to do for a shilling a day.”

“What?” Kristoff asked, not understanding.

“You’re free. Full pardon. All of you fucking traitors. Not my idea, mind, so don’t go thinking I’ve gone soft.”

Kristoff still didn’t move, and the man growled in irritation. “I knew you fucking highlanders were stupid, but this--”

“I can go home?” he interrupted, his heart picking up speed. “I can leave?”

“If you don’t hurry up and do it,” the warden snapped, “I’ll arrest you for wasting my goddamn time. Get out.”

He didn’t wait to be told again.

* * *

On the first day of the third act of her life, Anna was kneeling in the garden, weeding  around the cabbage plants, when a little girl came running up to her, calling her name.

“What is it, Addie darling?” she asked, brushing her hands off against her skirts and turning to the child with a smile. 

“There’s a stranger here, Miss Anna,” the girl said anxiously, “and he said he won’t talk to anyone but you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Was he armed?”  
“No, Miss, he just has an empty pack and a walking stick. He just walked right in to the blacksmith’s shop. Is he going to hurt us?” she asked, wide-eyed.

Without waiting for another word, Anna was off and running, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might burst. “Please, God,” she begged aloud as she made her way through the streets, “please let it be true.”

It couldn’t be; it had been so  _ long _ , two years now as of last week, she couldn’t even remember the sound of his voice sometimes unless she sat very still by the sea, and even then, even then--

She burst through the half-open door, panting, and her first thought was  _ it’s not him, _ grief sweeping through her all over again; the man seated before her was too thin, his hair too long, his shoulders curling inward and hands trembling. 

Then he raised his head to look at her, and though there were shadows like she’d never seen before under them, those were  _ his  _ eyes, and he was looking at her as if she were a ghost when _ he _ was the one who had died.

Somehow she made it over to him without her knees giving out, though she was shaking from head to toe, and it wasn’t until she settled her hands on his shoulders that she could believe that he was really there, that it wasn’t a dream. “Is it you?” she whispered anyway, needing to hear it before she could believe it.

“ _ Anna _ ,” he said, and though his voice was hoarse she would have known the sound of it anywhere, no matter how vast and empty the chasm of time that had stretched between them, and she let out a sob and collapsed against him, burying her face in his shoulder.

He caught her just in time, his arms not as broad as they once were around her waist, but warm and solid and _ there  _ all the same. “You came home,” she choked out, her fingers tightening in the worn fabric of his ragged shirt.

“I promised,” he said, his voice so soft she wouldn’t have been able to hear him if he hadn’t turned to brush his lips against her temple. “I promised I would.”

  
  



	6. a new promise

They were still clinging to each other when Anna heard the door swing open and felt Kristoff stiffen in her arms. She rose back to her full height and turned, keeping a hand on Kristoff’s shoulder, to see her sister peering in, eyes wide, and what looked like half the town behind her.

“See, Miss Elsa?” little Addie said, triumphant and unaware of the tension in the air. “I told you there was a stranger.”

Anna squeezed Kristoff’s shoulder as she replied, “Not a stranger. This is...this is our friend Mr. Bjorgman. You were only a wee little bairn last time he was here.”

Elsa came in then, extending a hand. “Kristoff, welcome home,” she said, faltering when he didn’t rise to meet her.

Anna felt him draw in a deep breath before he pulled away. Glancing over she saw he was reaching for a cane that she hadn’t noticed propped up against a table. He took it in hand and took two heavy steps towards Elsa, who smoothly switched hands in order to grasp his free one. 

“It’s good to be back,” he said, his voice low.

Something in Anna’s chest was suddenly too tight, something behind her eyes too hot. It had been ridiculous, she realized now, to expect him to come home unharmed, to think it would all be alright, just as it once was, but to see the way his shoulders curled inwards, the way his head hung low, the way his knuckles whitened as he held onto the cane in his hand…

Her thoughts were interrupted by someone clearing their throat, and she looked to see Ross, who she supposed she ought to stop thinking of as just the carpenter’s boy now that he’d been doing the work on his own for two years. “Are there any others?” the boy-- hardly a boy now, too, anyway, she realized-- asked, the last embers of hope shining in his eyes.

Kristoff bowed his head; Anna hesitated for a moment before stepping forward to stand beside him, but he didn’t reach for her. “No,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

* * *

That night his dreams were of Callum’s lifeless body beneath his horse and Lachlan with the rope around his neck and the rattling of chains, all of it watched over by the silent, sad-eyed chorus who had come to his door yesterday and been disappointed to see it was only him.

Anna would have stayed all night if he had let her, but once they had all dispersed and she had seen to it that he had supper, he had kissed her forehead and insisted that she go home and sleep in her own bed. “I don’t care about my reputation,” she’d said, keeping her arms wrapped tight around his waist. “They know how I’ve mourned you, anyway, and that we want to get married. They’ll not say anything.”

A lump had risen in his throat. Did she really still want that, after all this time? He had dreamed for so long of seeing her again, but he hadn’t dared to hope for what might come after, not since he had broken his promise to her to be home before the first snows fell. He was nearly two years late, and it made something in him ache to know that she had been left just as desolate and hollowed as he had by this godforsaken war that he knew would never truly end, not for him.

“Aye, they might not,” he’d conceded, “but you won’t be able to rest well here. And they rely on you now, don’t they?”

And she’d sighed and admitted it was so, and he would have offered to walk her home, but he had seen the devastation in her eyes when she realized he hadn’t even come home whole as she’d begged him to, and so to save her the sight of him hobbling beside her, he had waved her goodbye and watched from the window until she disappeared from sight.

He rose at sunrise the next morning, changed into the least moth-eaten of his shirts that were still folded, untouched, in the trunk at the end of his bed, and set off to give what little comfort he could.

Sometimes he could tell the truth-- “aye, he was very brave, and it was over before he knew it was happening. We buried him with full honors on a hill by the loch.”

Other times, he lied, knowing that perhaps he was damning himself by doing so. It was worth it, though, to see the relief on a widow’s face when he said, “and he took down three redcoats with him, they’ll write songs about that one,” instead of “I held his hand and wept with him until the bitter end”.

Anna caught sight of him that first morning, but he shook his head slightly, letting her know this was a journey he needed to make on his own. It took nearly a week to visit them all, and each night when he returned home his leg ached and his heart weighed a little more. She came to him at night, still, bringing him food she’d made herself and telling him stories about her day as they held hands across the table.

On the sixth day, he stood in front of Bridget MacLeod’s door, his free hand raised to knock, and unbidden, the memory rose in him of the last time he’d seen Callum alive and well. “Do you think my son’ll recognize me?” he had asked as they refilled their packs the eve of the battle.

“Of course he will,” Kristoff had reassured him. “You’re his father still. Can’t forget a thing like that.”

He heard Bridget murmuring then through the opened window, what sounded like a lullaby, and he lowered his hand and walked away.

That night, when Anna reached for him across the table, he pulled his fingers back, and they spent the rest of the night in silence. The next morning, the sun rose, and he stayed in bed watching it, tracking its movement across the sky the whole day, rising only when Anna knocked on his door.

And that was how he spent the next day, and the next, and on and on until they all blurred together, punctuated only by Anna’s smiles that grew fewer and farther between.

* * *

She came in one day in late July and found him sitting in front of the dark hearth, staring hard as if by doing so he might will the ashes to life.

"Good afternoon," she greeted him, and from across the room he sighed and bowed his head.

"I don't think I can be a smith again, Anna," his voice strained and full of stories he hadn't yet told her.

She crossed to him, hesitating before daring to lean down and kiss his cheek. He didn’t react, too focused on whatever shadows only he could see. "That's alright," she reassured him, smiling faintly when he wrapped his arms around her and leaned against her. “We’ll find other work for you.”

Kristoff sighed and closed his eyes as her hand went to stroke through his hair, untangling the messy strands. 

“It isn’t alright,” he said quietly. “None of it is. And I'm sorry, Anna, I-- I can't in good conscience marry you if I cannot even provide for you."

"Oh," she managed to say, feeling as if a wave had caught her off balance and flattened her against the sand as it swept over her, choking the air from her lungs. "I-- I'll still keep bringing you supper if you like, I...I'll not have you starve."

He looked like he wanted to say more, but after a moment he returned his gaze to the ashes. Anna blinked hard, willing the tears to stay locked away, as she pulled back from him. “I'll...I'll be back later then, I suppose." 

No reply came, and so she turned to the door and left him to his ghosts.

* * *

The first time he had been able to tell Anna  _ thank you _ in her own tongue, she had beamed and thrown her arms around his neck, and though he hadn’t understood the babble of words that had rolled off her lips, he had heard the joy in them and known it was because she was proud of him, and he had loved her ever since.

She had carried him through those frightening first weeks as an orphaned boy far from home who still woke up weeping and calling for his parents in a language no one else understood. When the kindly older couple who had taken him in had passed, too, she had been away from him for the first time, living with an aunt in Yorkshire to be trained in the ways of English ladyhood, and still she had sent him a letter full of her condolences and promising to come home right away if he’d needed her. Every grief he’d endured, from boyish heartache over lost marbles to the yawning ache of never truly belonging, she had shouldered alongside him, carrying his burdens without a second thought.

And he liked to think he had returned the favor in some small way, had shielded her from what sorrows he could and supported her through those he couldn’t, had laughed at her mischief and wiped away her tears, had cherished her in his own clumsy ways and had somehow miraculously won her heart.

In a way, he supposed, wedding vows would be redundant; had they not already been living them out all along?

But there was more to it than that; no matter how deeply he loved her it would not keep her clothed and fed. The war that had crippled him body and soul had only brought out her determination, her strength, and he could not bear the thought of being the iron chain that fettered her to suffering.

But he was still selfish enough not to turn her away when she came by each night with supper for him. He didn’t dare to talk besides telling her “thank you” and “good night”, but he would sneak glances at her as she set the table for him, as she ate in silence with him, as she made sure there was enough for him to break his fast in the morning. 

It broke his heart afresh each evening to see the new ways sorrow etched itself over her features. He knew it was his own fault and still did not know how to comfort her, not without risking further harm. It grew harder each day to stomach the food she so carefully prepared for him, to even dare to look at her, and still she kept coming, kept doing all he would allow to care for him. It was a shadowed, empty reflection of the life they might have had together if he had never left, and it was all he had to cling to, and as much as he hated himself for it he could never bring himself to turn her away, even knowing how deeply it hurt her to see how he could no longer bring himself to look her in the eye.

In his dreams at night, though, he did look at her, and he held her as close as he could, kissed her over and over as he wished he dared to in daylight, and she would open her mouth and speak to him as freely as she used to, though the words were not her own; it was the language of his homeland, and he no longer recognized the words, only the shape of them, and knew somehow they meant he was loved.

And he woke up each morning in an empty bed with an aching leg and wished he hadn’t.

* * *

“ _ Eat _ , Kristoff,” she said, with a new, frantic edge in her voice. “You’re going to starve yourself if you keep up like this.”

He didn’t even look at her. “Is that what you want, then?” she demanded. “Want to throw away the gift you’ve been given and waste away?”

She watched from behind as his shoulders tensed, but still he wouldn’t turn and look at her. “Well, Kristoff? Is it?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said at last, his voice so low she could barely hear it. 

“Why not?” she snapped, hands on her hips.

“You should have left. You should have thrown out the ring the moment I broke my first promise to you and found someone else, someone who would care for you like I can’t. You should be in a fine house in the city with a husband who-- who relies on only his own two legs to stand, and--”

He trailed off, his shoulders sagging forward, and the fear that had been festering in her over the past weeks overspilled its bounds and came spilling out of her hot and bitter as bile. “Is that it, then? You think I’m some feeble little wretch who runs weeping at the first sign of hardship, and that's why you've gone and cast me aside?”

“Anna…”

She moved to stand in front of him, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it. “I taught you your letters myself when I was but a wee bit of a girl, did I not? And I didn’t know it, but even then it was for the love of you, in the hopes that one day when I opened my heart to you you’d be able to understand!”

“I’m sorry, Anna, but I’m not the man--”

“Aye, I ken well enough that you’re hardly a man at all, are you? Certainly not the man I love.”

He reeled back as surely as if she’d slapped him in the face, but she went on, her fists clenched and trembling with fury. “I’m still waiting for that man to come back from Culloden, and I’ve a feeling I’ll be waiting for a while yet. But wait I shall, because he told me he’d come home to me, and I’ve never yet known that man to break his word, not to me nor to anyone else.”

He started to bow his head, but before he could she set her hand under his chin and raised it, forcing him to look her in the eye. “Don’t act like you’re the only one who’s gone through hell and back,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “I’ve lost you once. I’ll not do it again, not if there’s something I can do to stop it this time.”

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly, and something in her shattered at the sound of it.

“I love you, Kristoff,” she said, moving her hand up to rest against the side of his face. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, and suddenly she was fighting back tears. “And I’ll go on loving you just as much even if you never find your way back to me.”

He nodded, just barely, and didn’t open his eyes. Anna leaned down and kissed his forehead, lingering there for a long moment. “I’ll leave you to your supper, then,” she said, hoping he would ask her to stay, but he only nodded again, opening his eyes to watch in silence as she walked away.

* * *

  
  


A knock came at the door the morning after. He didn't stand; whoever it was, they were looking for a man who was no longer there.

The knock came once more, and the voice he had expected not to hear again in this world called, "Kristoff, I know you're still angry with me, and you've every right to be."

His brow furrowed.  _ He  _ was the one who had been wronged?  _ No, Anna, _ he wanted to call back,  _ it's me who's let  _ you _ down, _ but before he could she went on.

"I've brought you a visitor. And lunch, too, if you'll have it."

For a moment he hesitated; if she were alone, then perhaps he would dare to crack the door, and then he heard a little laugh as Anna whispered something, and curiosity took hold of him.

He reached to where his cane rested against the table and rose to his feet, taking a deep breath to steady himself before crossing to the door. He swung it open and froze.

There she was, wearing the dress she'd worn to bid farewell to him those two years ago, and her hair spilled the color of warmth over her shoulders, and she was smiling free and easy at the child in her arms with eyes the same shining blue as hers and a shock of familiar dark hair.

Kristoff stood rooted to the spot, not even stepping aside to allow them to come in. She looked up at him expectantly, the only sign of her nervousness the way she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.

"Anna," he said, his voice hoarse; though he suspected the answer, he still had to ask. "Who is he?"

Her smile softened then, tempered by the ache that still hadn't faded. "This is Callum's boy."

"The one they called…"

"Lachlan, aye. After his grandfather."

Kristoff had to clear his throat before he spoke again. "Well, I-- I suppose the two of you would like to come inside."

"Actually," Anna said, sounding almost shy, "we were wondering if you'd like to go for a walk with us to the moor and take your lunch there."

His fingers tightened around the cane; her eyes flickered towards the movement, and before he could speak again she said quietly, "It's alright. Lachlan and me both like to take our time dawdling from place to place."

"Are you sure? I...I don't want to ruin your afternoon."

She stepped closer then, the boy in her arms peering curiously up at the both of them, and when he didn’t pull away, she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I want you there," she said quietly. "Whether you feel like talking or smiling or anything else doesn't matter. I just want to sit with you for awhile in the sun."

The sun. He hadn't even realized it was shining today. "Alright," he heard himself say, "but let me carry your basket."

The smile that bloomed over her face then was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life. "I suppose we can allow that, Lachlan my darling, don't you think?"

The boy, overcome by shyness, turned his face quickly away and hid it in her shoulder, and she laughed and set a hand gently on his back. "He's a sweet little thing, really," she explained, moving back to allow Kristoff to step outdoors. "Just doesn't quite know what to do with strangers. He'll warm up to you soon enough, though, I know it."

As she spoke, her voice grew higher, breathier, as she watched him step outside for the first time in weeks. For a moment he thought he saw tears glistening in her eyes, but then she turned and set Lachlan on his feet, laughing when he toddled off straightaway in pursuit of a butterfly.

They followed after him, Anna guiding him when he wandered too far from the path that led up the hill, and to Kristoff's relief she hadn't exaggerated how slowly walking was when Lachlan led the way. Every flower, every animal, every little thing that caught his attention was studied and chased and cooed over, and before long Kristoff realized he was smiling, too.

When Anna caught sight of him, she fell back from Lachlan's side for a moment and extended a hand. "Let me carry the basket."

"I can carry it myself, it's no trouble," he said hurriedly.

"I know you can," she replied, shyness creeping into her voice once more, "but that way we'll each have a free hand."

Understanding dawned on him then, and without another word he held out the basket, not lowering his hand again until she had taken it in one of her own. Her fingers slipped through his then, holding on tight, and his smile broadened when he felt the press of the iron ring she still wore.

He cleared his throat. “I never…” he began, losing track of what he meant to say when she looked up at him, eyes clouded with worry once more. “I...I’m sorry,” he said for what felt like the thousandth time.

She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, too,” she said, “for being so angry with you last night.”

“I was angry with myself,” he said softly. “For not being who you want. Or who you deserve.”

Anna looked at him with a surprising fierceness in her eyes. “You’re what I want, Kristoff. You’re who I ached for every hour of every day you were gone. I’ll not pretend it doesn’t pain me to see you come back hurting like you are, but you’re still  _ you _ .”

He paused then, letting go of her hand so he could reach up and cup her cheek in his hand. “My Anna,” he said, his voice thick with unshed tears, “how can you show me such grace?”

She reached up and pressed her fingers over his, turning to kiss the palm of his hand. “I love you, that’s all.”

A shout came from the path ahead of them, and they turned to see Lachlan had succeeded in catching a frog. “Look, Aunt Anna!” he squealed, running over with raised hands to show off his prize.

“What a dear little creature,” Anna cooed. “But set him loose, now, so he can run home to his mother and have some supper.”

The boy knelt down and did so, waving goodbye until the frog hopped out of sight, and reached up with grubby hands in a silent request for Anna to carry him again. She handed the basket back to Kristoff before lifting the boy, who immediately wrapped his arms around her neck. “Is Mister Kris eating lunch with us?” he asked curiously, his blue eyes round as saucers as they began to move again.

“Aye. I think he’s earned it after carrying the basket for us all this way, don’t you think?”

Lachlan considered it for a moment. “I suppose so. Can I still have a whole sandwich to myself?”

She laughed at that. “If you can manage to eat it all, yes.”

To Kristoff’s surprise, the little boy did manage it-- well, most of it, at least; when a flock of birds landed nearby he leapt to his feet with a squeal and immediately began tossing crumbs towards them. When it was all gone, he came back, babbling all the way, and the moment he was sat on the blanket once more he yawned, and a moment later was asleep, curled up with his head pillowed on his hands.

“Callum was the same way,” Anna said fondly. “He’d drive you mad all day running around getting up to mischief, but then he’d just fall straight asleep before he had a chance to get in trouble for it.”

Kristoff swallowed hard. “Sounds like someone else I know,” he said, trying to tease, but she saw through him and turned to him, looking worried as she set her hand over his where it rested on the blanket.

He couldn’t bear to see her look so pained; he turned away, starting to apologize once more, but it seemed Anna had had enough of that these past weeks. “Look at me,” she said softly, and he obliged, drawing in a deep breath to steady himself.

Her eyes were solemn, and he loathed himself for it; before he had left, she had been all light and laughter and sweetness, and now he had stolen that away from her, had left her--

“Don’t,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts, and he winced as if she had struck him. “Don’t go down that road, Kristoff.”

It was tempting to close his eyes, to turn away, but he had broken her faith too many times already, and so he kept his gaze steady on hers, even as she leaned over, cradling his face between her palms, and his heart began to pound.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said; he opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with a quick shake of her head. “You did all you could, all anyone could have done.”

“I can’t make sense of it,” he said, the words that had been locked inside of him for so long suddenly pouring forth. “If there was nothing more that any of us could have done, if that was always what their lives had been leading to, then what’s the point of any of it? All of it, just  _ gone _ in a moment, and-- and all I could do was  _ watch, _ Anna, I--”

A sob tore itself from his throat as he said her name, and at last he did give up and look away in shame. But still her hands were there, brushing lightly over his cheeks as she wiped away the tears that were finally set free. “It’s alright,” she whispered, over and over as kept close beside him, waiting with him until the storm of grief had passed again, at least for a little while. 

“I’m sorry, Anna, I promise I--”

“No,” she said firmly, setting her fingers under his chin and tilting it upwards until his gaze met hers again. “You’ve made enough promises. Let me have a turn.”

His eyes widened as she leaned closer to him, pressing her forehead against his and reaching down to clasp his hand. “I promise to listen to you,” she began, “whenever you’re ready to tell me about what’s happened to you. And I promise to hold you whenever you need to know I’m still there, and I promise to let go when you need to be alone.”

“I  _ love _ you, Anna, and I...I’ve wasted so much time already. I...I don’t want to be alone, not ever again,” he said earnestly, and she squeezed his hand a little tighter.

“You won’t be, I promise that too,” she reassured him. “I’ve spent too long already without you. There’s not a thing in heaven or earth that’ll come between us again.”

“I wish I’d never left you.”

“And if you hadn’t, then you’d be telling me now that you wished you had gone in case there was something you could have done.”

He went still suddenly, enough that she pulled back in concern. “I...you’re right, aren’t you?”

“Well, I certainly hope I am. Otherwise I’m not doing a very good job of comforting you.”

A laugh escaped him then, a creaky, rusty sort of sound, but a smile bloomed on Anna’s face all the same, so beautiful he couldn’t help but lean forward to kiss her, and out of practice though they both were he felt a sudden thrill in his heart; perhaps the rest of the world had fallen to pieces around him, but this, but  _ them _ , at least, held steady even when nothing else could.

“I love you,” Anna murmured, settling her hands behind his neck to keep him close. “And I always will.”

“Is that another one of your promises?” he asked, surprising even himself with the teasing glint in his voice, and she grinned again.

“It is,” she said, kissing him again, “and I promise I’ll keep it.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is the epilogue yay
> 
> Huge credit to gabi for helping me with some of the lines!!


	7. epilogue

**1747**

Some days Anna didn’t do much of anything but sit with him. The rainy days, especially, when his leg ached so badly he couldn’t stand to even have her sit on his lap, let alone get up and try to squelch his way through the mud. On those days there wasn’t much she could do to help besides letting him lean against her as she sat beside him on his bed, lacing her fingers through his and holding on tight. He fell asleep sometimes like that, and she was glad for it, to hear the steady rush and release of his breath, to feel the weight of him against her shoulder, to know that when he woke he would turn and kiss her forehead and linger there and murmur his thanks, and she would tell him that she loved him and sense him smiling against her skin and be swept away once again by the rush of gratitude that he was _ home _ .

On better days, though, Anna would come in to find Kristoff training Ross to shape metal and Ross teaching him to shape wood; neither of them could bear to do what they’d always done, not with ghosts always hovering over their shoulders, and so together they found their own ways of moving forward. And she would bring supper enough for them both, and for herself and for Lachlan and Bridget and Elsa, and suddenly the house that had stood so starkly empty was full of light and laughter.

There was time spent alone, too, on the moor among the heather or on the cliffs above the sea, though Anna no longer dared to stand so close to the edge; it held no draw for her any longer. Kristoff stood as long as he was able, testing the limits of his strength; every day he managed it for a little longer, encouraged-- and distracted, perhaps from the pain-- by the way Anna fit so well in his arms.

Sometimes when they sat together they talked of what was to come, of the little house the whole town was coming together to help them build and furnish, their hands eager to do whatever they could to repay the sacrifices Anna had made for them. And they talked of how when it was finished at last they would be married, and whenever Kristoff spoke of it a little smile would appear on his face, and before long the conversation would be cast aside in favor of pulling Anna close and kissing her until she pulled away, cheeks rosy and eyes bright, and he would kiss the tip of her nose and whisper that he loved her, over and over until she leaned forward to kiss him again.

Other days, though, shadows seemed to hang over their shoulders, and they would hold to each other just as tightly as they spoke hesitantly of what Anna secretly called the dark days in her own mind. It was the small things they shared first, how he had been kept apart from the others in the prison as a reward for his work, how she had faced down the soldiers who had come to cause trouble.

And one day she gestured to the cairn, now overgrown with wildflowers, and said softly, “I...I led them all in building it. We wanted to honor you as best we could without a proper grave.”

He tried to count the stones from a distance, naming each of them, but then his eyes blurred too badly for him to see. Anna leaned over and held him then, stroking his hair as he wept against her neck and murmuring soft words of comfort.

“I saw him,” he said at last, the first time he had spoken aloud of it. “I saw Callum die, Anna, right in front of me.”

For a moment she went still, and he raised his head to look at her, worried that perhaps she wasn’t yet ready to hear of it. But then she took a deep breath and lifted a hand to his cheek to wipe away a stray tear. “Tell me,” she said softly, “please, tell me all you can bear to.”

And so he did, starting from the day at Prestonpans when he had killed a man to save her cousin and how he had shaken for so long that night, how her uncle had taken him under his wing afterward. And he told her of the grueling marches, the failed siege, the last battle where he had seen Callum fall, had thought he himself would join him in death, and how instead he found himself imprisoned with her uncle.

“They...all the clan chiefs, Anna,” he said, his voice tight. “It was treason, they said, and that’s a hanging crime.”

“I assumed,” she said softly, her own eyes brimming over at last. “I hope he and the others have found their peace now.”

“But before-- before that, he’s the one who told them I could smith. He knew the wound on my leg was festering and that if they wanted me to stay alive long enough to be of use to them, they’d have to treat it. And they did, and I…”

He swallowed hard and pulled up the leg of his pants, showing her the thick, raised scars circling his ankle. “I made my own chains, Anna,” he said, and she shuddered with horror and clung more tightly to him. 

“But you came home to me,” she whispered. 

“Aye. And I couldn’t have done without his help.”

She managed a little smile. “So, in the end, he did approve after all, I suppose.”

“Might have changed his mind now, seeing me keeping you out so late when the weather’s starting to turn cold,” he said, removing his jacket and draping it over her shoulders.

Despite the tearstains on her cheeks, she managed a laugh. “Probably run you straight out of town, shouting like a madman all the while.”

Kristoff kissed her forehead. “I think he’d like the stones you placed for him and the other men.”

“He’d like it more to know you’re helping now with raising his namesake,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “And Callum, too.”

For the first time in a very long while, Kristoff felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest.

* * *

**1748**

During the days their kitchen was full more often than not, never a shortage of children who came to learn their letters or grandparents who came to dispense sage wisdom or giggling girls who came to gush about the sweethearts they’d met from the next town over. “He’s so  _ handsome _ , Anna,” they would whisper, “and he says the sweetest things to me, and he promised to marry me in the spring. What should I do?”

And she would laugh and reach over the table to squeeze their hands and ask gentle questions to guide them as best she could, and Kristoff would smile when he came in and heard them, and when he leaned down to kiss her temple the girls would sigh and look on dreamy-eyed, and Anna would laugh again and say, “If he looks at you like that, then keep him.”

The nights, though, were just for them. Now when they ate dinner together, if there was silence it was a contented one, punctuated with little loving smiles and brushes of their hands against each other’s. And after, when the kitchen was tidied and the chickens snug in their coop and all the world felt put to rights, they would spend their nights tangled in each other, exchanging kisses and murmured sweetnesses and holding on to each other as tightly as they could the whole night long.

* * *

**1749**

“It’s alright,” Elsa said soothingly, patting her sister’s back as she clung to her and wept. “I’ll write as soon as I’m there, and you’ll write as soon as the baby’s born, and then I’ll know to expect you for a visit.”

“He’ll be as tall as his father before your letter reaches us,” Anna sobbed. “And I’ll be worrying all the while if you’re there and safe.”

“Now you’re just being silly,” Elsa teased. “It’s America, there’s only a little pond between us, just a few weeks’ journey. Besides, I’ve survived the French court, haven’t I? This will be nothing compared to it.”

“But I’ll  _ miss _ you,” Anna said, pulling back to swipe at her nose with the back of her hand.

“I’ll miss you, too,” her sister said, blinking back tears of her own. “But this is...it’s what I always talked of doing with Julien, how we’d like to see all the corners of the Earth. And who knows, maybe I’ll tire of it before long and come home.”

They both knew full well she wouldn’t, that she would go and stay and find her peace in the freedom she had always hungered for. But after a while longer the carriage arrived to carry her down to the port she was leaving from, and the sister broke apart, both of them clear-eyed and smiling tremulously.

“I hope you know we really will be on your doorstep soon as we’re able, whether you’re ready or not,” Anna said, wiping at her eyes one last time.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Elsa reassured her.

* * *

**1750**

“Thank you, my darling,” he said for the dozenth time as a chubby little fist held out another scraggly bouquet of wildflowers.

He took it and leaned forward to press a kiss to the sweet curve of a rosy cheek, smiling when his daughter giggled and threw her arms around his neck. She took after him; she wasn’t one for unnecessary words, but this was her way of telling him she loved him. Each day he took her to the hill she would toddle around him, pulling up handfuls of heather and dropping them in his lap, and each time he thanked her, her eyes would light up, as bright and blue as her mother’s, and off she’d go again, searching for something else that would make him smile.

And then inevitably she’d yawn and come over to him, plaintively reaching out as she did now. He pulled her close and settled her in his arms, rocking her gently until she fell asleep, wispy blond hair spilling onto his shoulder. “That’s my girl,” he murmured, kissing her temple.

Anna came to join them before much longer, a basket swinging merrily on her arm. “Hello, my love,” she said, her skirts spreading over the grass as she settled beside Kristoff. “And good morning, my Grace,” she teased as the little girl blinked blearily awake, already wriggling towards her.

Anna laughed as she took the toddler, covering her face in kisses until she was awake and laughing. For a moment Kristoff only looked on in wonder at the sight of them there, hair fluttering in the breeze and so happy, despite the moss-covered cairn only a few yards behind them. 

“What is it?” Anna asked, worry he saw so rarely these days creeping into her eyes, but he only shook his head and leaned over to kiss her.

“I love you, that’s all,” he said, and it was-- all that mattered, anyway, here in the light of the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for reading and following along!
> 
> Special thanks to Gabi (gabiwnomagic), Johanna (jericks3/reindeersweaters), and Mary (kristoffbjorg) for helping me so much with this one! Gabi has posted lots of amazing art of this fic that you can find in my PTK tag on tumblr: https://ahtohallan-calling.tumblr.com/tagged/ptk
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the fic :)


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